Believing in a Very Big Godby Ray Waddle “Presbyterians believe in a very big God,” says James Hudnut-Beumler, dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School. It’s an insight as old as the Ten Commandments, and it gives Hudnut-Beumler his bearings every day. It’s useful theology to remember in a world where religion is a deep, clamorous, sometimes dangerous reality. It also helps Hudnut-Beumler in his task as dean at one of America’s most prestigious theological schools, and the most influential non-denominational divinity school in the South. “A very big God means having no other gods before God, no idols,” says Hudnut-Beumler, a Presbyterian scholar and son of a Presbyterian minister. The temptation, he says, is to believe in the religion of the job, the religion of the new Lexus, the religion of a convenient, do-ityourself, too-small god. “What are the signs of a too-small god? One sign is when that god requires me to hate and reject others that God has created. Another is when people insist God is on our side and apparently our side alone.” Hudnut-Beumler leads a school known for its commitment to the critical study of biblical tradition and to a progressive social philosophy inspired by the Hebrew prophets and the sayings of Jesus. The school also promotes healthy respect for religious differences and disagreements: Only a very big God has all the answers. “The school is a living demonstration that people from many different religion traditions can talk about what matters with one another without giving up who they are or what they believe,” he says. Now 44, Hudnut-Beumler was the youngest new dean in recent divinity school history when he took the position two years ago, leaving the deanship of Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga. Presbyterians are the third largest group of divinity students (behind Methodists and Disciples of Christ) at Vanderbilt Divinity, making the school the largest training center between Louisville and Atlanta for Presbyterian ministers. He’s at the helm of the divinity school at a time of transition, when a slate of prominent professors has recently reached retirement. The Protestant-oriented school has lately embarked on some theological expansion as well, adding new faculty in Jewish and Catholic studies in recent years. Beyond the walls of the school quad, the larger social landscape, already churning and shifting in its spiritual allegiances and identities in the past generation, is made more complex these days by the broken-hearted anxieties of post- Sept. 11 life. Hudnut-Beumler is keenly interested in the contribution the school can make to promoting religious understanding and also discerning the difference between good religion and bad in perilous times. Bad religion is arrogant and intent on certitude, eager to claim God for its own murderous selfserving ends and sees other people as disposable, he suggests. In his address to the school body last Sept. 13, entitled “Do We Need a New Religion?”, Hudnut-Beumler declared: “And as we have just seen, there are also those in the religious world who would have you exchange the uncertainties that a thoughtful person entertains for the predictable certainty of a small deity that behaves as human beings might wish. But that God will never satisfy, let alone save.” His own scholarly interests reveal a fascination with the way people work out their faith in secular and economic life — for instance, how people find God, or avoid God, in their attitude toward money or career. One of his books is called Looking for God in the Suburbs: The Religion of the American Dream and Its Critics 1945-65. Another is Generous Saints: Congregations Rethinking Ethics and Money. He also directed the Material History of American Religion Project (www.materialreligion.org). Besides dean, he is also Anne Potter Wilson Distinguished Professor of American Religious History at the school. Hudnut-Beumler, who grew up in Detroit, has degrees from the College of Wooster in Ohio, Union Theological Seminary in New York and Princeton University. (In May, Hudnut-Beumler gave the baccalaureate address at Wooster. He boiled down some of his advice to graduates: “Never discount love when hate seems the easier option. . . . Assume you can learn why others are different. . . . Believe that everything that’s here has reasons for being. . . . Struggle for justice, work towards meaning . . . . Regard the flourishing of others as your success as well . . . Maintain a critical mind, but seek truth.”) He’s also the husband and father of two (Julia is 11; Adam, 8), a family man who is also happy to tackle various carpentry projects in his spare time, ranging from bookcases to the occasional canoe. “I’ll work on anything I can build in the garage and get up the stairs,” he says.
Heidi and James Hudnut-Beumler He’s not the only ordained Presbyterian in the family. His wife, Heidi Hudnut-Beumler, is a Presbyterian minister, taking on an active role in the Presbytery of Middle Tennessee. She is on the Committee on Ministry and recently completed consultancy work at Second Presbyterian Church. She has been a field education supervisor for a Presbyterian student at the divinity school. She is also adept at liturgical dance in church settings. Like her husband, she does guest preaching stints. She’s a strong believer in “equipping the saints” — inspiring all believers to live out their calling and discern their gifts for Christian service in and outside congregational life. And, like her husband, she’s a believer in the sovereignty of God, the “very big God” of Scripture and Presbyterian doctrine. It’s something to share with a jittery world these days, she says. “In light of Sept. 11, in the uncertainty of life and death we still belong to God,” she says. “That’s something we’re called to share, and it’s very meaningful to hear at this time.”
(Ray Waddle, former religion editor for The Tennessean in Nashville, is a freelance writer.) Photo by Ray Waddle.
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